20 October 2010

Indian filmmaker Ranjan Palit will take part in a Q&A following a screening of IN CAMERA, an autobiographical documentary about his career as a cameraman. The Q&A will be moderated by RTF associate professor Lalitha Gopalan. The event, which is co-sponsored by the South Asia Institute, is set to take place on November 10 in Studio 4D.

Wednesday, November 10
6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Studio 4D in CMB

Synopsis: In this meditative and strident overview of the career of Ranjan Palit, award-winning documentary cameraman, the filmmaker himself shows us the images and questions that have haunted him throughout his 25-year career. Celebrated for films that document the struggles of powerless people to save their homes and ancestral traditions, Palit still questions the good he has done for them and wonders if he's merely turned their lives into images and then memories that are destined to be forgotten.

He reflects on his subjects and locations, from a sightless singer at village cremations to the fierce first lady of Indian cinema Kamlabai Gokhlae. He's obsessed by the footage of an activist boy pointing him out in the crowd, accusing him of police surveillance. The children Palit captures on film - victimized and radicalized by the events around them, and not least of all his own daughter - most powerfully force him to confront his motives, as well as his suspicion that he has "used film as the ultimate alibi: frame first, act later." Palit explores the connection between his professional and personal lives, inextricably entwined in his collaboration and marriage with filmmaker Vasudha Joshi, and eloquently answers his own question: "Isn't being behind the camera better than looking away?" 
-Frako Loden

Ranjan Palit's bio: Ranjan Palit has been working as a documentary filmmaker and cameraman for the last twenty-five years. His films include Voices for Baliapal (National award for the best film on social issues, 1989; Golden Conch, MIFF 1992); Follow the Rainbow (Valais award for Best Independent film, Geneva 1992) The Magic Mystic Marketplace (Golden Conch, MIFF, 1996;UNESCO prize, Munich 1997). His Forever Young (2008), an hour-long documentary for BBC Storyville focuses on Lou Majaw, a 62-year-old rocker from Shillong and his annual concert celebrations of Bob Dylan's birthday over a period of five years.

As a cameraman Palit has shot close to a 100 documentaries for other filmmakers. Some of his recent documentaries include A Night of Prophecy (2002, dir. Amar Kanwar) How We Celebrate Freedom (2007, dir. Sanjay Kak) and Lightning Testimonies (2007, dir. Amar Kanwar). His awards include National Awards (India) for Best Documentary Cinematography for In the Forest Hangs a Bridge (1998, dir. Sanjay Kak) and Conversations (2004, dir. Arvind Sinha); and the Indian documentary producer's association Award for Best Documentary Cinematography in 2008 (Hope Dies Last In War dir. Supriyo Sen).

Palit has also worked as a DP on a number of feature films, Dreaming Lhasa (2005, dir. Ritu Sarin), In Othello (2003, dir. Roysten Abel) and so on. He recently finished shooting Bollywood director Vishal Bhardwaj's Saat Khoon Maaf.

He has been teaching camera as a guest lecturer at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata, for the last decade and conducted a Master Class on "Colour and Light" at the Talent Campus at Pusan International Film Festival 2007 and at the Osean Cinefan Festival in New Delhi.

At UT Austin, Ranjan Palit will screen his most recent film In Camera: Diaries of a Documentary Cameraman (2009) sponsored by PSBT Film Fellowship Programme. In Camera won the best long documentary at the International Documentary and short film festival of Kerala in June 2010 and National Awards for Best narration/voice-over and Best Editing for a non-feature film.